


just this once, i'll make the sacrifice

by siojo



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Canon Relationships, Canonical Character Death, Fake Parents AU, Gen, Lies, Lullabies, Rouge's Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-23
Updated: 2021-02-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:48:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29664756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/siojo/pseuds/siojo
Summary: Rouge isn't sure what to make of Monkey D Garp when he turns up in her kitchen. He wasn't what she had expected, not from Roger's stories of him, maybe that was a good thing.
Relationships: Monkey D. Garp & Portgas D. Ace, Monkey D. Garp & Portgas D. Rouge, Monkey D. Garp & Silvers Rayleigh
Comments: 17
Kudos: 98





	just this once, i'll make the sacrifice

“Why did you agree,” Rouge asks finally, ignoring the way that Garp is looking past her and out the window. Watching for something that she can’t see with her back to it, because she needs an answer. To know why Roger trusted a marine more than his own friends. “When Roger asked, why did you agree? You have to know that it’s dangerous for you and your career.”

Garp blinks, looking at her finally as he falls back in his chair, lifting it up onto two legs for a long moment, “Because a child shouldn’t be forced to pay for the crimes of their parents.”

“That seems to be a rather progressive view for a marine.”

Once, Rouge would never have said something like that to someone who had come to help her, but she’s spent the last year watching women and children being put to death for the crimes of being pregnant or born at the wrong time. She’s watched doctors kill themselves or be led away in chains by men and women wearing the same uniform that Monkey D Garp is, because they refused to feed the marines information at the cost of their own lives.

“My son,” Garp says slowly, shoving a hand through his hair and mussing it. “Is the head of the Revolutionary Army. He is still my son, for all that I don’t support what he does or his revolution’s goals,” he pauses, mouth twisting in annoyance for a moment. “If he has a child, they will be hunted for their relationship to him. To be used as a pawn against him or to kill them for the fact they exist. A child doesn’t deserve that.”

“That’s a nice sentiment.”

“Most words are, but I’m sure that they mean even less to you now. Since you’ve lived through this.”

Rouge smiles, bitingly polite and falsely sweet, “I’m sure that I wouldn’t know what you mean.”

“I’m sure,” Garp laughs bitterly, his shoulders falling as he clasps his hands together on the table. “I don’t have anything to offer you beyond my word.”

“Your word.”

“I’m sure that my word has no meaning to you, if you even considered it more than patronizing, but I gave Roger my word that I would protect you and your child,” he pauses, studying Rouge for a moment, eyes darting over her face as if looking for something. “It wouldn’t have mattered if I had been able to arrange my lies sooner, but I didn’t. You’re dying.”

“I know,” Rouge agrees softly, her hands curving around her teacup instead of gripping the edge of the table until her knuckles bleed white. “I’ve known that it was a possibility the moment that I decided to extend my pregnancy, that no one survived carrying a baby for so long. It’s only become more of a reality the more doctors that Baterilla lost.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Garp says leaning forward, chin resting on his folded hands, watching her like he’s trying to commit her to memory. The way that Rouge had done for her mother before she had died. “I meant, you’re going to name your son and die, because I’ve already seen it happen once.”

“Already seen it once?” Rouge repeats, arching an eyebrow curiously, calculating how hard it would be to escape Garp, should he be mad enough to try something foolish.

“I was an old man, an older man,” he corrects himself, misinterpreting the look on her face. “I had two grandsons once, almost three. Portgas D Ace, your son, Dragon’s only child, Luffy, and their best friend, Sabo. And they died one by one. Ace was twenty-one, Sabo was between twenty six and twenty eight, and Luffy’s execution had just been announced before I found myself here.”

“How old would Luffy have been?”

“Almost thirty five,” Garp answers, looking tired and older than Rouge knew he was, as he watched the breeze twisting through the palm trees outside her home. “I wanted them to be marines once. Thought it would be safer for them, but Ace was his father’s son in more ways than he cared to admit, Sabo took over my son’s army, and Luffy wanted nothing else but to be the Pirate King.”

“Oden’s wife was from another time,” Rouge offers finally, because she has never met Toki, but Roger had told her plenty of stories about her and the rest of his crew, and it’s impossible to mistake the sadness and grief seeping into Garp’s words. “Your grandchildren.”

“I think I’m a little old to be a father again,” Garp says softly. “And I didn’t want to take away from their birth parents. I wanted what was best for them and I failed. Now….”

“Now,” Rouge prompts around the lump in her throat, her hands shaking as she turns her teacup between them, lukewarm now.

“I want them to grow up and be happy. Roger outlived all three of them and he was dying long before you even met him. Do you think it’s too much to ask? For them to outlive me, even if just by a few years?”

“Not at all,” Rouge takes a shaky breath, focusing back on what Garp had said. About her  _ son _ . “Portgas D Ace? A son?”

Garp pauses, studying her for a long moment, before nodding slowly, “You named him Gol D Ace, but they never gave up. The Marines never stopped looking for Roger’s child and Portgas was never going to be as dangerous a name for him to have. I won’t apologize for changing it.”

“Did you think I would be upset?”

“I didn’t know you before. I was late, last time. Late enough that I arrived as you named your son and then died. It’s different this time, I’m earlier because I know what’s going to happen, and I… I regretted that I never got to ask you about yourself. Ace always wanted to know more about you, not his father, and I didn’t have much to tell him.”

Rouge hums, trying to ignore the ache in her chest at the thought of her son,  _ her son _ , never knowing more than a handful of things about her, “Will you tell me about him?”

“He won’t be the same,” Garp says, slow and reluctant, refusing to look at her as he speaks. “I failed him last time and that means I have to change what I did.”

“I know, but that was still a version of my son and if I won’t be able to see him grow up, then I would like to know about the child that held so much influence over you that he was at least a third of the reason that you’re doing this.”

“Thought you would be more interested in what I planned to do to keep your son safe.”

“I am, but it’s like you said. I’m going to die. I’m going to die without knowing my son and what parent wouldn’t want to know about their child in that case? I made my peace with the likelyhood of my own death, Garp, that doesn’t mean that I won’t try to learn as much about my son’s life as I’m able before that.”

Garp nods, sighing as he closes his eyes for a second, smiling softly, “he was a happy baby. Active and smiling. His caretaker used to call me to complain that he was too fast for her to keep up with. I don’t, I never figured out what changed, but I think it was my fault. Ace wanted to know why he was hidden away, living in the mountains. I didn’t handle it well,” he shakes his head, looking defeated. “He hated Roger in the end. Hated what being his son made him. Monster was the nicest thing that I ever heard Roger’s hypothetical child called,” he smiles sadly. “He hated Luffy when I first introduced them. Tried to kill him more then once, but Luffy was good for him.”

“Luffy was younger than Ace?”

“By three years. Ace was happier with Luffy around, called him his little brother. He took off to be a pirate when he was seventeen. Did well for himself, got invited to become a Warlord before ending up with Whitebeard.”

Rouge swallows hard, trying to imagine him and failing, “Was there someone?”

“I never knew. If there was, they were quiet about it. I do know that his crew loved him and they followed him when he joined Whitebeard. That he was one of the old man’s division commanders and he was happy.”

She nods, twisting her cup in her hands before setting it aside, unwilling to break it. She’s proud, so proud of him, of someone she’ll never get to meet or watch over. But it gives her hope, because if her son is half the man that version of him had been, it would be enough.

“How did-”

“He die?” Garp finishes for her when she can’t, smile bitter. “He was given to the Marines in exchange for someone else to gain Warlord status. I, I think they knew. That someone stumbled onto something after he told them no to becoming a Warlord in his own right. His execution was public, televised everywhere. It was a disaster, Whitebeard’s whole crew, all of his allies, came to try and stop it. Luffy too. They,” Garp closes his eyes and Rouge feels a moment of guilt for needing to know this. “They almost made it.”

“Almost.”

Garp nods, once sharply, “Luffy fell behind or tripped, no one could ever give me a straight answer, and Admiral Akainu was going to kill him. Akainu has a magma devil’s fruit,” he adds like it’s an important detail. Rouge wonders if she’s missing something that everyone knew about her son in this other timeline. “Ace got between them to protect Luffy, Akainu’s arm went through his chest. His last words were thanking everyone for loving him.”

Rouge blinks rapidly, her eyes burning, because it hurts so much more than she could have imagined, “He, he sounds like he was everything that I could have hoped for. Thank you. For telling me.”

“You asked. And,” Garp shrugs helplessly. “You’re his mom.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Rouge states bitterly. “My blood doesn’t matter to the Marines. It wouldn’t matter if Ace was my mirror image, because to them, Roger’s bloodline will always mean more to them than anything else.”

“I know. Dragon, my son, takes Roger’s place as the most wanted man in the world in a few years. I don’t remember exactly when he took the title, but I know that it’s why he sent Luffy to me, because his son will be in the same position as Ace.”

Rouge watches him, trying to imagine the effort and time that had to go into hiding two of the most wanted people in the world, both of them just children, but can’t fathom it. She can imagine the feelings behind the actions, however. The constant low level fear that spikes when Marines did their searches or asked about her baby’s father. The guilt as people died around her for a crime that they didn’t commit, and the biting need to watch over her shoulder, because she doesn’t know what is coming next.

“I’ll protect them,” Garp promises.

“Tell me how.”

“Just like that? No promises, no swearing on my life? Most people want at least one.”

“I believe you,” Rouge shrugs tiredly, feeling the weight of the last eighteen months weighing down on her shoulders. “You love my son, that is obvious from the way that you talk about him. About him and Luffy both. Why would I need you to promise to protect someone that means so much to you?”

Garp watches her for a long moment, like she’s something that he can’t quite understand, “I am sorry that I didn’t come back sooner. That you won’t get to know Ace yourself.”

“I told you, I came to terms with my death before Roger turned himself in, because I knew that I would do anything to keep my child safe. But thank you, it’s kind of you to say,” she rests her chin on her palm, wondering for a moment what Garp gets from this conversation. What he’ll tell Ace about it one day. “Your plan?”

“It’s fairly simple,” he admits, shifting uncomfortably when she raises an eyebrow. “Did your mother ever mention your father?”

“No?”

“I was never stationed on Baterilla specifically, but for two years I was in the area and I spent more time on this island than I really should have. Transferred to a new post about six months before you were born,” Garp winces, looking guilty for a moment. “And was known to sleep around after my wife passed.”

Rouge knows where this is going, it’s impossible to miss, “And my mother was known for her affairs with attractive, powerful marines.”

“I hope that my lie doesn’t offend you. It’s easier to explain how I ended up here and why I’m taking your son in. Between the fact that they’ll think Ace is my grandson and the promotion that I’m getting,” he pauses for less than a second, looking resolute. “For Roger’s capture, I should have more time for Ace.”

“Is more time for him important?”

Garp laughs, smiling easily for a moment before that tired sadness creeps back across his face, “More time means more training. I didn’t, I thought that I would have more time to teach them when they became marines. When they didn’t, running off to be pirates, I was mad that they didn’t listen to me. That they took off to do what I told them not to, so I never bothered to make sure someone else did teach them. They weren’t prepared enough and that was my fault.”

“The promotion,” Rouge asks instead of blaming him, there’s not enough time for her to be angry at him for actions that won’t happen now. “Will it give you more time?”

“Not exactly. What it’ll give me is more freedom. Allowing me to spend more time in East Blue, since it will be more paperwork oriented, thus able to be done anywhere. It’s not what I wanted, but I got what I wanted last time and look where it got me.”

“Will your son be upset? About you claiming me as your daughter? I don’t think we would be that far apart in age.”

Garp snorts, relaxing back in his seat, “My wife passed away not long after Dragon was born. He might be a brat about how soon I moved on or something like that, but we’re not very close. That’s my fault.”

“Too busy being a marine?”

“Too busy being a Marine and trying to raise him the same way that I would train them, instead of letting him be a kid.”

“I wish that I could have met him too. Even if he would have hated me, it would have been nice to know about the man that the world is going to believe is my brother,” Rouge sighs, trying to imagine growing up with a sibling at her side and failing. Her mother had been kind enough to wait until she was older to tell her that Rouge was a mistake, but she had been firm that she would have no more children. “Won’t a daughter that you never know count against you?”

Garp laughs, loud and rumbling, “If a daughter living quietly in West Blue, doing nothing wrong according to what the Marines can find, can get me into trouble, then a son who started a revolutionary army is more than enough to have me killed,” Rouge snorts, covering her mouth with her hand, ignoring the look on Garp’s face, like he’s seen something that hurts him. “You might honestly be better for my reputation. For all that they’re going to know about you.”

Rouge smiles, her stomach twisting itself in knots, even as she feels lighter. It hurts, knowing that Ace wouldn’t have her there for him, but it helped, some, knowing the man who would raise him. That Garp would go out of his way to lie to the world to hide Ace away.

“Ace,” Garp pauses, tapping his fingers against the table top. “He always had questions about you. I, can you tell me about yourself, for him?”

“I don’t see why I wouldn’t. You might want to take notes, you know, if you’re going to be my father, some of these things aren’t facts that you want to forget. Not when there’s no one to correct you about them after I’m gone.”

“I’ll do my best,” Garp assures her. Rouge thinks it’s almost too obvious that he means it. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Rouge says tiredly, reaching for the tea pot and holding it up to offer him another cup and pouring more into her own to make the cold tea at the bottom of her cup warm again. “I suppose that we should start with my favorite lullaby. I wanted to sing it to Ace myself, but if I can’t, I hope that you will do it for me.”

“Anything you want,” Garp promises.

Rouge thinks that she might just believe him.

* * *

“Sailing in the sky, sailing over the sea of sleep,” Garp sings softly, unable to stop the smile that crosses his face as Ace hiccups instead of screaming. Making sure to rock him in time with the ship, glad to no longer have his ears ringing. “While the clouds float by. Sail baby sail, out upon the sea, don’t forget to sail back again to me.”

It had hurt more this time, leaving Batterilla with Ace in his arms and Rouge’s ashes hidden in his coat, because he hadn’t realized how much it hurt Ace to never be able to visit her grave. Last time he hadn’t bothered to try and meet the woman who could tempt the Pirate King, Roger, into a simpler life, but this time was different. Garp had changed it, let the world think that he had lost his daughter and gained a grandson, instead of sneaking Roger’s orphaned son to Dawn.

Rouge might have called him her father, smirking when they were safe in her home after making sure to be spotted walking together in town, happy to to feed the lie as long as it kept her son safe, but for her, it wasn’t real. For Rouge, it was a plan and a lie. This would be the rest of Garp’s life, mourning a daughter that he had barely known and raising her son to be the pirate that he knew Ace would always be.

Ace wiggles, fighting the blanket that he had been wrapped up in, grumbling as he tried to free himself. Garp had forgotten about this, what Ace had been like when he was this small and the only thing Garp had to do to protect him was to hold him close. Luffy had been older when Dragon had finally sent him to Garp and Sabo had been Garp’s grandson only tangentially, more the boys’ best friend for all that he had known him.

Garp had never thought about what he had missed, with the other two, but Ace had always been sweeter like this. Willing to laugh at the slightest provocation and wanting his attention, something that Garp had never given any of them enough of. He had come to regret that, after they had set sail, one after the other, and then died the same way. Too young and in front of him.

“There we go,” Garp says easily, not that Ace was calm and content once more. “I know, it’s a big change, but Gramps has lots of things to think about, you know. Like what I’m going to do next. Your mommy might not have killed Gramps for letting you die last time, but she will if I let you die twice, Ace.”

Ace sighs, his eyelids slowly refusing to stay open, until Garp is left holding a sleeping baby who is going to drool on his shirt again. He thinks he would mind more, if he wasn’t still so, so grateful to have woken up here. In a time when none of his mistakes have led to the deaths of those that he loves.

“I promised your mommy, my daughter,” Garp adds for himself, because he needs to get used to calling Rouge that if anyone is going to believe this. “That you were going to live longer. That one day, when she met you again, you would have lived to be at least as old as your daddy was when he died.”

Roger hadn’t been that old either, almost the same age as Garp was, when he had let the Marines take him. And he had already been dying, based on what Roger and Rouge both had told him. From what little he had gotten from Rayleigh after Ace’s death, after finding him and beating him for trying to blame Garp for his inaction and not even speaking of his own.

“We’ll have to talk to your daddy’s friends,” Garp frowns at the thought, leaning back in his chair.

The crew of the Oro Jackson had been hunted down just as fiercely as the rumors of Roger’s child and with far more success. Oden was untouchable, Daimyo of Wano and a noble in his own right, his retainers protected by much the same. The rest weren’t so lucky. Silvers Rayleigh, who hadn’t yet left his captain’s son to his execution, was still in Sabaody, drinking himself into a stupor. Shanks, the grandson stealing brat, was just a brat himself and Garp couldn’t put the pressure of raising a child on him. Him or the clown brat. Which left him with only one choice.

“Your daddy couldn’t have made better friends could he? At least more sober ones would have been nice,” Garp sighs tiredly, smiling when Ace hiccups in his sleep. “At least Crocus should be willing to check you over to make sure you won’t get sick like your daddy.”

Crocus would never leave his home and Laboon, but he had been the only one of Roger’s friends to have seen Garp with Ace and insist on giving him a check up. Running test after test to make sure that there wasn’t something wrong and checking his results against Roger’s own. Because Roger hadn’t been quiet about wanting a son to carry on his legacy and he was just crazy enough to ask a marine to protect his kid.

Garp closes his eyes as he takes a deep breath, trying to ignore the footsteps that he can hear heading his way. His first mate had been with him for years, sailing under his command for longer than any of the rest of his crew, which is why he doesn’t snap when she enters without knocking.

“Sir, we’ve re-entered the Grand Line. What is our heading?”

“Sabaody.”

“Sabaody,” her voice is bland and her tone is barely curious, but Garp knows that is also the same tone that she uses when he’s thrown a cannon ball into the Melody instead of the enemy ship. “What would we be sailing to Sabaody when we have orders to return to Marineford? For that matter, sir, what should I tell Sengoku about your rush to West Blue?”

“My daughter called, she was pregnant and expecting a difficult birth. She wanted family there in case the worst happened,” Garp answers, knowing that she’ll understand what he isn’t saying, adjusting his grip on Ace as he sits upright. “I’ve taken my grandson to arrange for his care.”

She nods slowly, “I’ll let him know we’re headed to Sabaody to start arrangements, sir. Will there be anything else that we need to pass on?”

“Not at this time.”

“Of course, sir.”

Garp smiles when she closes the door softly, instead of slamming it to show her displeasure with his cryptic answers, the way she normally did, “She likes you. She always gets angry when Gramps doesn’t tell her things. Almost threw me into the ocean once after letting one of the ship dogs eat all my crackers. And we were a week away from resupply.”

Ace doesn’t answer, still fast asleep as Garp hums the lullaby that Rouge taught him again. He doesn’t need to, Ace slept like a rock at this age, down and out until he got woken up, either by his stomach or for a change.

“Fishing near and far, his line a silver moon beam, his bait a silver star,” Garp sings, staring at the ceiling of his room tiredly.

He hadn’t made many changes yet, not enough to really change what he knew was going to happen, but he would. Soon enough, Garp would turn around and find that his knowledge of the future was worthless, left to wait and watch to see if what he had done was enough to ensure his grandsons lived this time.

It also left him in a precarious position, because there were hundreds of things he could change or influence. Futures that he could ruin or save, all at his own discretion. Garp would have to decide if he was going to let the rest of the world rot to ensure that he would always be able to keep his grandsons safe. But that was a choice he could make later.

“Baby’s boat the silver moon, sailing in the sky.”

* * *

Rayleigh’s world has been a blur since he had stood in Roger’s cabin, listening to Crocus explaining exactly what was causing Roger’s bouts of tiredness and lethargy. Since he looked into the bottom of a bottle and kept himself there. Drinking instead of letting himself sober up enough to deal with the emotions that he knows are waiting for him. Even when the Oro Jackson had fractured on Roger’s orders, their idiot cabin boys taking off with more than their fair shares and vanishing without a word. Even when Shakky tried to cut him off, it wasn’t hard to find another way of keeping himself from sobering up and dealing with the reality of the situation. Roger had always laughed and told him that it wasn’t the smartest way to deal with things, but Rayleigh hadn’t let that stop him.

All the marines that have come in and out of the bar since the execution have refused to stop talking about it. About how Roger’s words were going to bring about another group of pirates to hunt for his treasure and fight over his legacy. The word still feels bitter in his mouth, the thought of Roger’s legacy and how he hadn’t even trusted them enough to know about it.

Which is why, when he hears the door to Shakky’s bar opening, the little bell on top jangling discordently, he ignores it. Takes another long drag of the bottle that he had talked her out of and hunches his shoulders, hoping that it didn’t end in a fight. Again. Shakky might care for him, might even have married him, but she would only overlook the damage that he caused to her bar for so long before deciding it was too much.

“When they said you were a drunk,” Monkey D Garp states, voice softer than Rayleigh has ever heard before, taking the seat to Rayleigh’s left. “I was hoping that they meant something a little less messy.”

“I don’t have anything for you. And I won’t go quietly.”

Garp snorts, shifting as the barstool creaks under his weight, a casualty of his last bar fight, “Who said anything about taking you in?”

“Is that what you told Roger when you captured him?” Rayleigh snaps back, gritting his teeth around the urge to punch Garp in the face. “Told him that he could trust you and sold him out?”

“Roger contacted me to turn himself in, not the other way around,” Garp corrects him, sighing softly. “He wanted to give himself up and I was the only person that could capture him and not raise alarms. He knew what he was planning, Silvers. We both know he wasn’t going to make the year.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Roger told me. To make sure that they didn’t try to delay his execution and parade his capture around. Said it wouldn’t do for the Marines to finally take him in and then be unable to publicly execute him to show the world what they could do. No thank you,” Rayleigh catches sight of Shakky putting the bottle in her hand back down and sliding a glass of water towards his unwanted guest. “Had the audacity to ask me to do him a favor while he was at it.”

“What? Make sure that the swords were sharp?”

“Did you know about Rouge?”

Rayleigh snorts, dropping his head onto his arms, “Of course I did. Roger called me up as soon as he met her, talking about how she was perfect and how he was in love with her. He told you about her?”

“His favor had to do with. Rouge was pregnant.”

The room lurches around him and Rayleigh isn’t sure that it’s the liquor this time. His stomach twists in guilt, how many calls had he ignored before Roger had gone to the platform? Before the world had celebrated his dead? Because, as angry as Rayleigh had been, how much he had hated that Roger had just given up on finding a cure, at Roger and his illness and the world, Rayleigh would have gone to Rouge’s side if he had known.

“Was?”

Garp grunts, “Died in childbirth.”

The bottle in Rayleigh’s hand shatters, a muffled curse from down the bar letting him know that Shakky hadn’t missed it either, hurrying over to start helping him with the glass.

It didn’t hurt the way that Roger’s death had. He hadn’t known Rouge, not really, but she was still someone that Roger had cared for and had told him about, who he had spoken with several times before Roger had said he was thinking about turning himself in and nothing Rayleigh said could change his mind. And now she was dead.

“The baby?” he whispers, closing his eyes to prepare himself for the worst. Ready for Garp to tell him that the child, the one that he had heard Roger talk about so excitedly when it was just an idea, who Rouge would pipe up in the background of calls insisting that a son would be named Ace and a daughter Ann, died with Rouge.

“With her father. Portgas D Ace was born hearty and healthy, almost two years after his father was executed,” Garp answers after a long moment, humming softly. “Rouge’s father took him in as she asked, to raise him.”

Rayleigh closes his eyes, the ache in his chest throbbing in time with each breath he takes, “Didn’t know Rouge’s old man was still kicking.”

“No, I don’t suppose that you would know that, would you? She contacted him when the doctors started to be taken in by the Marines. Too many claims of them lying about pregnancies and fathers. Was barely a nurse left on Baterilla by the time things started to settle down.”

“You met him?” Rayleigh asks softly, waiting for Garp to make a small sound of agreement. “Can, would he let me see him.”

Garp sighs, shifting in his seat as it groans again, “Do you think that a drunk is the best person to have around a baby? Sober, it’s possible that I could get him to consider it.”

“He knows?”

“Roger asked me to check on my daughter and then my daughter contracted me to let me know that she wasn’t expected to live through my grandson’s birth,” Garp answers after a long moment of silence, pausing for a moment. “I think that I would know who the father is after that.”

The silence is deafening as Rayleigh replays Garp’s words over and over again in his head. The memory of it ringing in his ears as he tries to process it, because Roger had only ever spoken on Rouge’s family in the past tense. Even Rouge herself had only spoken on her mother a handful of times, commenting about her penchant for Marines and nothing more.

“You’re…?”

“Rouge’s mother would never confirm or deny it, but I’m the most likely candidate. Rouge wasn’t a stupid girl and her mother had mentioned plenty of Marines over the years, but after her mother’s death, it was easy enough to guess based on her own knowledge and her mother’s diaries. She’s my daughter and her son is my grandson.”

Rayleigh hates how much sense it makes. Roger had always spoken about how Rouge was unnaturally strong, lifting things that would give most people difficulties with an ease that couldn’t be replicated, even used Haki like it was something that came as naturally to her as breathing. Roger had mentioned, once, that Rouge’s mother hadn’t been able to do the same. Rayleigh wonders, for a quick hysterical moment, if Roger had ever known who his wife’s father was.

“You’re going to protect him?”

“He’s my grandson, I would do anything for him. Even track down a drunken idiot who followed his father without question to make sure that he has someone who knew Roger, without the stories and propaganda of the Marines to taint the knowledge.”

“I can meet him?”

“I was hoping to have you help me raise him. The Marines will never be a safe place for my grandson, not with the weight of his father’s sins laid against him. They won’t stop hunting the whispers of his existence, not now. Rouge was smart to call me, it means there’s a papertrail, but he’ll always have the stigma of being born on Baterilla.”

“Rumor says it’s a graveyard.”

Garp’s hand goes tight on the glass, knuckles white as he tries to keep from breaking it, “They stopped burying the dead long before I caught up to her. They were burning them in mass, since it was easier to dispose of. Rumor also says that I just missed one of your cabin boys, he was helping burn them.”

Bile is a taste that Rayleigh knows well, he might not have sobered enough in the last few years to experience the hangover that’s waiting for him, but he’s gotten drunk enough to throw up more than once. The image of Buggy or Shanks on Baterilla, alone, helping to clear the bodies of women and doctors that had been found guilty by Marine justice in their hunt for Roger’s child, is enough to make him feel sick. They were still young, Roger might not have been the best parental figure, but he had kept them away from the worst of things.

“You didn’t know.”

“I haven’t been keeping up with the rumors as much these days.”

“Sounds like an understatement,” Garp sighs through his nose, draining his glass. “Can I have your help in this? You would have to meet me where I’m headed.”

Rayleigh shrugs, trying to look nonchalant, taking the bottle that Shakky had left him, “I’ll think about it. I’ll let you know what I decide.”

“Dawn Island is in East Blue, I’m going to speak with Crocus before that. It wouldn’t do for my grandson to go the same way as his father,” Garp says, dropping what he owes onto the counter. “Thank you for your time. And for the drink, Shakky.”

Rayleigh ducks his head, waiting for the sound of the door closing, for the bar to be silent once more, empty now except for himself and Shakky. He’s grateful for it too, as his shoulders start to shake and his eyes burn. Roger had been dead for two years and Rogue for less, though it galled him to think that he would never get to meet her now, but their son wasn’t. Their son, who’s marine grandfather was willing to risk everything to make sure that Ace learned about his father without the lies that the world had been sold.

He sets the bottle down, pushing his glasses up and pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes to try and stop the tears.

“Did Garp have something important to say?” Shakky asks, her hand soft and firm on his shoulder, grounding him. “Or was this another warning about raids on my bar?”

“He told me that I needed to sober up or I’d never be allowed to meet Roger’s son,” Rayleigh hiccups, trying to breathe through the tightness in his chest. The memory of Roger laughing and telling Rayleigh that he would be godfather to any children he had making his heart ache. “Technically my godson.”

Shakky laughs, giving his shoulder another squeeze as she steps back, taking the bottle with her to pour down the sink, “I suppose that you best start to sober up now. The sooner you do, the sooner you can meet him, isn’t that right?”

“You just want me to suffer through the hangover that I’ve not stopped drinking long enough to get,” Rayleigh whispers, smiling softly when she tilts her hand from side to side, not fully denying it. “I didn’t think…”

He cuts himself off before he voices it, before he can say what he’s been thinking since Roger died, because if Roger was dead there wasn’t a chance he could have a child. Even if he had blatantly ignored Rouge’s existence after that, something he would never stop regretting.

“I won’t be around much, if he wants me to help train him.”

“I’m sure that I can manage without you drinking everything that I buy in,” Shakky smirks, glancing back at him. “Besides, I’ve always wanted to take a vacation. I’m sure that I can find someone to run the bar occasionally, if only so you don’t attempt to swim across the Grand Line again.”

“You sink your ship one time,” Rayleigh whispers, clasping his hands together on the table, and regretting that he hadn’t asked Garp more. About Rouge, about Ace. About them both. But there would be time later, he was sure, after all, Garp would be around to raise his grandson too. Rayleigh could ask his questions then.


End file.
